A moment later there was only one of them left burning-the peat that stood upright at the center of the fire-and pointing again, Old Da went on. The fire had been a good one, but now the peats at either side of it were burning down and crumbling into a fine white ash. "Look there!" said he suddenly pointing to the fire of peats burning on the hearth.
And at last he noticed something which seemed to him the true cause of Tam's uneasiness. He listened, therefore: he waited, and he watched. Even so, Old Da Henderson had the feeling that it was not just the storm that bothered Tam, for Old Da was pretty old and his head was simply full of the superstitions of those days. The whole family could hear how the storm was raging, of course, for their house stood close to the head of a long bay cutting into the rocky coast of the island-the kind of bay that Shetlanders call a voe"-and so the thundering noise of the waves was very near. There was also the family's sheepdog, Tam and as the storm grew wilder and wilder that night, this dog became very uneasy. There were four other, members of the Henderson family, however, apart from Robbie himself-his parents, Peter and Janet Henderson, his sister Elspeth, and his grandfather, Old Da Henderson. Also, there was a certain Robbie Henderson living in Black Ness at that time-a lad of twelve years old, according to all accounts-and he was the person most concerned in the mystery of this stranger, Finn Learson. It so happened, then, that a ship named the Bergen was wrecked on one of the islands in this storm, and the shipwreck was near a place called Black Ness-which was not so much a place, really, as a scatter of houses on hilly ground overlooking the sea. Also, the Shetlands themselves lie in the stormy seas to the north of Britain and it was on night of very fierce storm that it all began. Or, so some people say, anyway but to be exact about all this, you must first of all know that the Selkie Folk are the seals that live in the waters around the Shetland Islands.
It was a while ago, in the days when they used to tell stones about creatures called the Selkie Folk.Ī stranger came ashore to an island at that time-a man who gave his name as Finn Learson-and there was a mystery about him which had to do with these selkie creatures.
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